Thursday, April 20, 2006

A habit of baiting...

A bitch spent the evening catching up on the news. A certain Jeremy from Montreal forwarded an article from 365Gay.com regarding the Duke rape case…and one of the men arrested…and the fact that he had been arrested before in a gay baiting assault in Washington D.C.

Remember that train my ass was talking about?

And a bitch is using the term baitingdeliberatly here.

For those of you who are blessed to be unaware of what gay baiting is, a bitch will attempt to explain…because it goes to the modus operandi of the individual involved in both cases…big time.

Gay baiting, in this context, involves taunting the victim or victims…baiting them into a response and then escalating the incident into violence in response to the response you incited.

Got that?

Person one yells 'faggot'…person two yells 'fuck you'…person one throws something…person two draws away…person one pursues and proceeds to beat the shit out of person two for having the audacity to stand up in the face of verbal harassment...or something along those lines.

Race baiting works much the same way, which brings us to the incident at Duke. Reports say that individuals in the house where the victim was raped verbally assaulted two black women…unrelated to the shit going down in the house…while they walked by on the night in question. One of the women called 911 and there is a record of her phone call and her distress.

It is also alleged that racial taunts were being slung around in the house…that those taunts and slurs where the reason the women left the home and the victim had to be convinced to go back in. There is also some information out there stating that the only reason the victim returned was to retrieve her shoe.

Now, a bitch is going to walk down a road and my ass hopes y’all will join me.

Colin Finnerty has demonstrated the classic signs of a baiter. Baiters require a reaction to 'absolve' them of their predetermined response.

This bitch has witnessed this shit…against gays and lesbians at Pride, where the homophobes shouted at us that 'God hates fags' and 'Go get a man, you dyke whore'…against Mexicans in Texas, where the bigots were shouting ‘Go home, wetbacks’…against feminists on the march, where the bigots were shouting 'All you need is one good fuck to get you back in line!’…against blacks marching against disenfranchisement, where they taunted us with ‘Go back to Africa!’…and so on and so forth.

Baiting is a time honored tool for bigots.

So, a bitch sees a pattern here. Mayhap it is a surface pattern, but this bitch has seen this shit before and my ass doubts it is limited only to the surface of Mr. Finnerty.

Which brings me to the spin. A bitch watched reports from the campus of Duke, where dorm mates were shocked and were rallying behind Mr. Finnerty…because he is incapable of doing anything violent and he is such a great guy.

Who just happened to be involved in a physical assault…against a gay man…after baiting that man with…what was that again…oh, yes homophobic taunts and insults.

Taunts.

Baiting.

Reaction.

Violence.

Such a…nice guy.

Incapable of…violence?

What of the gay and lesbian community of Duke? Why was Mr. Finnerty allowed to return to campus and be a potential threat to them? At the very least, shouldn’t he have been removed from the Lacrosse team?

Think about the statement that would have made…to the community…to student athletes…to the nation.

Was Mr. Finnerty on scholarship? Did Duke donors pay to have a homophobic predator represent them through the pursuit of athletic excellence?

And where is this angle in the national press?

CNN mentioned it in their initial reports and then...nothing.

Why, with so many stories swirling about the victim, her possible motivations and her past, is the press tucking a previous violent act by the accused in their editorial pockets?

Well, why the hell not tuck it away?

Fuck it…he’s such a nice, clean cut stand up kind of guy!

Jesus, give me strength.

The stench of this…is overwhelming.

And that train…that bigot train…it keeps stopping right on fucking schedule, doesn't it?

47 comments:

It's that gross default straight-white-male thing. His friends think he's "nice" because he's nice to straight white men, who are the default "people." Everyone else (female, gay, black) is considered an aberration, even though, together, female, gay, and black people make up a seriously powerful majority in this country. These boys clearly grew up somewhere where only rich straight white guys make up the public sphere, and finding out that wasn't the case elsewhere bruised their poor fragile little egos.

Duke U is officially at the top of my shitlist for not immediately taking a stand against these boys' actions. And why didn't they? To keep their precious lacrosse team together? Please. This is patriarchal reinforcement all the way up. "We have to keep the [straight rich white male] donors happy!"

"Reports say that individuals in the house where the victim was raped verbally assaulted two black women…unrelated to the shit going down in the house…while they walked by on the night in question. One of the women called 911 and there is a record of her phone call and her distress."

Just so you know, this is not true. The second stripper made both calls (she has already admitted this). This does not mean racial slurs were not used (most agree they were used inside the house), just that you are using out of date reports.

I'll bet you that once the trial convenes, the jury will be predominantly white, although Durham county is predominantly black! If any blacks are selected for jury duty, they will be major-domos to the caucasian perspective.

I have observed twice now in the last 2-3 weeks from two different white female news casters, that because of the boys good looks and the fact that they are from good families, you can infer for yourselves the code meaning of good family, that they (white female newscasters) would find the boys not guilty of the alleged crimes.

The so-called legal system at its finest. Having served on a few juries, I'll leave you with this observation, if you are a person of color and you come across as uppity, you will be convicted.

Well done-couldn't have said it better while it is of limited comfort know that there are others out here who are riding on the same train-It would be interesting to know if the GLBT's at Duke knew of this previous event-and now that they know what are they doing-

Ooooh! I'm standing right next to you. I said the same thing last night when I heard the report on CNN. A bigot is a bigot is a bigot. I have NO problem believeing this young man capable of the crime of which he is accused. I hope the rest of the world can think critically.

It just becomes more and more clear that a crime committed by a straight white man is not a crime unless it's committed against another straight white person, preferably a straight white man who has more money than the criminal.

And hello! I started reading your blog on the strength of Ancrenewiseass's recommendation.

It's absolutely flabbergasting to me that people are still saying that these are "nice boys."

For the love of God, people, even if you don't think they're guilty of rape, these young men are clearly neither "nice" nor "boys"! Looking presentable in a pair of khakis doesn't make them model citizens.

Reminds me of going to high school under the thumb of an unbelievably bigoted principal: he had a history of absolving athletic superstars for things like drug possession on campus, even flushing their stash down the toilet for them, but then expelling "undesirables" (black kids, "hippies," poor kids) and forcing them to go to school elsewhere.

The response of most white kids at school? "Well, he never bothers me." The response of most white parents? "He's a disciplinarian--exactly the kind of strong hand we need in charge of our kids!"

I nearly went out of my mind then, and I'm nearly going out of my mind all over again, watching the same thing happen at Duke.

What drives me nuts about the coverage of the alleged rapists is the media’s constant “shock” that such nice [white] boys could ever be involved in something so bad. Look at their nice [white] parents. Look at their nice [white] neighbors. Look at their nice [white] friends. The media seems to be asking, how could such a bad thing happen to [white] them? Oh, wait, they aren’t the victims here? Huh.

At times I don't quite agree with you but why the hell is everyone questioning this poor girl? Even if she wasn't raped the conduct that happened that even was not acceptable and is not the type of conduct that comes from clean cut, upright guys. Sheeze!-Nate

Actually...as of 4/18/06...police were not able to determine who made that phone call.

"Police said they don’t know who made the 911 call to report the racial slurs, and the complainant was gone when police arrived at the house. But Durham police spokewoman Kammie Michael said Thursday that they are convinced the call was not made by the same woman who later said she was raped and sodomized by three men at the party."

Duke U is officially at the top of my shitlist for not immediately taking a stand against these boys' actions.

Look, I'm no big fan of Duke, but the university did suspend the team, fire the coach, and cancel the season. All before an indictment was handed down -- in fact, the first national news reports I heard, the first and third had already happened.

For some comparison: can you imagine the University of Michigan, Texas A&M, or Nebraska cancelling their entire football season on the basis of a rape accusation against members of the team, before indictments were handed down? I grew up in a football town, a town that's recently had some problems with members of the team and their behavior. Fire the coach, sure. Suspend the season? Hell no.

I'm not saying Duke couldn't handle this even better, but I think that saying they haven't taken any stand at all is ungenerous.

When I was in college, this guy was kept on campus, ON SCHOLARSHIP, after he pleaded guilty to assaulting a female athlete, who moved out of state afterwards. I was working at the Rape Victim Advocacy Program at the time, so I learned firsthand how a community will condemn a survivor, run her out of town, and continue to celebrate her athlete assailant.

Finally, he struck again, that time attacking his girlfriend. He's behind bars now, but with "good behavior," he'll be out in less than a year. Two women's lives ruined.

His troubles are not all about race, but there were obvious discussions about it when it came up. Anyway, I guess I'm just pointing this out because in this case as well, the national media all but ignored it (though they were sure to cover his attempt at the NBA last year), and the same shit happened. The school let him hang around, paid for him to do so, and let him hurt more before taking him out.

Thanks for being so right on, ABB. Baiting is a serious problem, and you are dead right to address it. As always, bravo.

Reading your blog is like getting a college education. I learn something EVERY time I come here. The bonus is I learn stuff from your readers too. This post is only second to your invisibility post. Brava sister, brava.

when i think of how many of my college friends were raped by other students... it makes me sick to my stomach.

i almost asked a very clean cut nice boy to a formal until my roommate, who was in a rape-survivor group took me aside and told me that one of the other suvivors in her group had been date raped by him.

Hey, as a Jew, I get the discrimination bullshit all the time. 'Specially now that I don't live in NYC anymore and live in Gator country. I got the regional headquarters of the KKK in my backyard, practically.

It's human nature, ABB. Action, reaction. Bigots wait for it, feed upon it and sadly, it is up to the victim to be the bigger person and suck it up whilst walking away with integrity and teeth intact. It's a sad state of affairs. It's only getting sadder.

I don't care how clean cut or what a nice boy he is/was. Ted Bundy was cleanshaven and by all accounts, a really nice guy.

Shark-fu said... "Actually...as of 4/18/06...police were not able to determine who made that phone call."

http://www.nbc17.com/news/8756511/detail.html

This is from the 17th - "The woman [second dancer] admitted calling 911 to report racial epithets yelled at her and the accuser as they left the party. But she said the details of the incident became jumbled in her call because she was trying to hide the fact that she had been performing at the party."

Why do so many people keep referring to these men as boys? Because they clean up well? Would we still call them boys if they were anything but white? Probably not. Yes indeed, I love me some double standards.

When a bitch wants to call someone a Nazi my ass calls them a Nazi...got that?

Catch that knee before it jerks next time...and your mistaken view that a bitch is speaking only to you has officially begun to bore me.

As to innocence, a bitch has yet to convict...hold it! Catch that knee, dear!

This bitch has been exploring that pesky playing field and how it is so very bumpy on one side and so very even on the other side. The fact that my mere exploration of the inequality present in the coverage of the victim versus the coverage of the accused drives people into a state of red faced irrate knee jerking frustration is because so few people do it...and even fewer do it when the accused are wearing $3,000 smiles and look like such nice guys.

Since the one report is from the 17th and the report with the quote from the police spokesperson is from the 18th, a bitch suspects that this may be a media cycle correction...or the official police report has not bee changed yet.

This bitch shall give the reporter a call and see what's what...

...but as someone familiar with the world of news, it only has to accurate up to the moment it goes to print which is why there are often conflicting reports that sound so fucking certain.

"Later, police received a 911 call from a woman complaining that she had been called racial slurs by white men gathered outside the home where the party took place. Roberts acknowledged that she made the call because she was angry."

I should point out again that race-baiting is still believed to have occurred in the house.

And it's always straight white men who bait, right. Tell that to John Broderick Hehman. He's a white college student who was hit by a car in Harlem while running from a gang of black teenagers screaming "Get whitey!". Oh sorry, we can't tell him because he's dead.

And please don't tell me I'm full of shit because I throw in one example. We all know there's plenty more where that came from. Bigots are everywhere, in every community, in every socio-economic layer of society.

All this bashing of straight white "privileged" males doesn't really help because they are not all racists, bigots, baiters, etc. And guess what else - they don't really smell like dogs when they get wet.

I'm a gay latino male. I've been baited more times than grandpa's fishing pole. I've been called queer fag spic nigger and everything else, I've been spit at, beaten up, called a piece shit and told I'm going to hell, and it sure isn't always straight white guys who are doing it.

And White Bear - it's not a "straight white male thing" to tell the news reporters "he always seemed so nice" - we've heard that crap about every crazy psycho who gets caught doing crazy psycho shit (and gang raping a girl in bathroom IS crazy psycho shit, but it ain't the only crazy psycho shit going down in this troubled world)

So yeah, Finnerty is a gay-baiting asshole who has been indicted for rape. My partner, who grew up privileged, went to an expensive prep school and graduated from Duke where he played college sports, is not. Neither are his straight white brothers and his straight white brother-in-law who all had the same privileged background. And our nephews won't be either.

So let's just focus our vitriol on those deserving of it and try not to judge an entire group of people based on the actions of few lest we be called...bigots?

Just goes to show a bitch that bigotry is an equal-opportunity offender! Same pathology exercised on any opportune target! These boys are protected by their magic crotch-wands, their white cloaks of invisibility, and their bullet-proof button-downs and khaki pants!

In response to Michael: the reports that I've read about the Hehman case state that one of the boys (and, in this case, they actually are boys - 13 and 15 year olds - who are now being charged as adults) yelled "get the white boy." Not "get whitey." And not a gang of them screaming it. They are also not being charged with a bias crime. Don't distort the currently known facts to make your example seem more apropos.

Let's also not ignore the vast differences in the history and current reality of racist words or acts committed by white people against people of color, and anti-white words or acts committed by people of color against white people. There's a little thing called power involved there, and for centuries, that power has been decidedly slanted one way and not the other. Makes a big difference.

Isn't it funny how the second STRIPPER contacted a P.R. firm for all this to "spin to her advantage." HA. Well what a credible witness there, eh? Another thing, I don't know any psychotic person that would decide hmm, lets rape a few bitches! Reade Segilmann had NO time to do what is alleged he did. A six minute window isnt enough time to take a poop let alone commit a horrendous act.

Collin Finnerty is one of the nicest kids i have ever known. He would NEVER EVER EVER rape someone. He doesnt need to. I think the D.A. needs to let go of his personal agenda of being reelected

First, have you not noticed the accused's lawyers doing a hell of a lot of PR in the press? It's entirely plausible that one of the accused might feel she needed a little help in that situation. Her reputation is on the line here, too.

(And please refrain from making any dumbass comments about how a stripper can't possibly have any reputation to speak of: only a fool would assume that all strippers are morally bankrupt. There's no more sense to that than in assuming that all lawyers are assholes or that all preachers are saints.)

Second, I'll wager you've been lucky enough to avoid being in any physical altercations lately. During six minutes, a hell of a lot can happen. Ask anybody who's been in a sparring match lasting only a few minutes.

Third, you may not think you know any "psychotic person that would decide hmmm, lets rape a few bitches," and yet, rape is a pretty common crime, my friend. Not to mention that very few rapists are classifiable as psychotics.

Finally, rape is not about whether someone "needs" to force people into having sex with them. Rape is not about sexual frustration. It's frequently not even about getting off in anything more than a psychological sense. It's a crime of power, in which one person decides to impose his (or her) will on another and treat that other person as an object.

The news report I saw in The Post cited an anonymous phone call as the source of the "get whitey" statement. Agreed that The Post is not "the paper of record", but is "get the white boy" any better? Was there some confusion about who they were attacking so it was neccessary to bring up race? But regardless 5 teenagers chased this guy into the street. Not a gang? Depends on your definition of gang. 5 against one don't sound like good odds even if they are only teen-agers. The NYPD is not calling it a bias crime, but last I heard the DA was conducting its own hate-crime investigation. And they will be tried as adults but if convicted they will be sentenced as minors. I'm not trying to distort any facts. I don't have to in order to make my point and I note that you don't deny that people of color are just as capable of hate as whites are. Thank God we have equality in our capacity to hate.

So a historical lack of power justifies bigotry? If only 2 wrongs made a right, we'd have a quick and easy way to solve all the worlds problems. I grew up experiencing hate and bigotry. My father was an educated man, an engineer, and my parents had to leave their home as political refugees. They came here not speaking the language, with no friends or contacts. They worked as a maid, janitor, dishwasher, mushroom picker, you name it. We were treated like shit by a lot of white people. But not all. And when I did well in school and got scholarships the people in my own community called me a race traitor, said I was "acting white" and uppity. I'm proud of my heritage, I'm proud of my parents and I'm proud of my achievements. My parents taught us that hating the bigots wouldn't help us and wouldn't hurt them so why waste your energy on that. And they would have kicked my sorry brown ass to hell and back if I ever said I couldn't get ahead because white folks had all the power and they were keeping me down. THAT's what makes a big difference. No doubt that they do have an advantage in terms of wealth, power, opportunity, etc. but allowing that fact to hold me back or make me a victim only gives them more power over me.

Michael, I'm really not understanding your objections here. I don't think anybody involved in this discussion said white people were the only ones capable of race baiting or harrassment. I also don't think anybody made the argument that people ought to use being members of an historically disenfranchised population as an excuse to choose not to achieve all that they can, anyway.

You're to be commended for what you've accomplished, as are your parents: it isn't easy to perform well when society expects you--and even encourages you--not to. And I'm glad to hear that your experience with white people from privileged backgrounds has been mostly positive.

But I cannot understand how your comments address what's being said here. As I understand it, ABB and many of the rest of us are remarking on how some white people internalize a sense of entitlement on the basis of their social standing and repeatedly use that position as a platform for self-aggrandizement at the expense of others, sometimes in criminal ways.

That's not the same dynamic as the one you're describing in the NYC case, and bringing up the NYC case negates precisely none of the points we've made about the Duke case.

Understand me, please: I am not saying that race-baiting is okay, no matter who is doing it. I am not saying we shouldn't talk about it or condemn it if non-white people are baiting white people. What I am saying is that the fact that the NYC incident occurred doesn't make the Duke incident any less heinous.

To anon: I agree 100 percent with your last paragraph and I'm not in any way trying to dimish the gravity of what happened at Duke. I was focusing on the "baiting" aspect of the post. I am in no way trying to compare the New York incident to the brutal rape of an innocent woman.

I felt that some (certainly not all) of the comments to this particular post about "baiting" (not the post itself) were critical of all white people. And my point is that people from every segment of society are capable of bigotry and hatred and it is never justified or defensible.

Breaking news: Insider Tip. My attorney knows the attorney for the defense in the Duke rape case (they graduated from the same law school). I am a black woman and I'd be the first one to rush to her defense, even if it was a bunch of black men who did it. She lied. Her own attorney said she lied--but he has to defend her nevertheless.

well this is my first time checking out your site, and i was interested to read your post on these issues. one thing that always strikes me about the 'but he's such a great guy, he'd never do that' attitude is that people need to totally wise up to the statistics. I'm over in the UK, so it's probably different numbers where you are, but i've had this argument with people here: if you think that something like 60/70% of women will be sexually assaulted in some way, at some time in their life - who the hell do you think is doing all that? it's NOT just a couple of psychos out there. you've got to figure that any person who knows more than a couple of men has got a pretty good chance of knowing one who's done, or will do, something pretty unpleasant. Yet everyone thinks that their frineds, brothers, sons would never do it. Denial is a powerful thing, huh?

I've been gay-baited before, several times, and in each instance the baiters were young black men. There is no question in my mind that this population is, on the whole, the most homophobic anywhere this side of the Taliban. Sorry, but it's true.

I am sick of spoiled assed rich bastards trying to get away with raping a mother and student and the damn vile lawyers helping them. Send those rich bastards to cell block D for thirty-five years. That'll teach'em a lesson.

A Bitch,I was browsing on you blog and it just happens that you have some past post about the Duke Lacrosse scandal. Mind you that the case may be ages old,but it still is fresh on my mind.

I've also read past stories about the victim about the young accuser of this. When I first read her story, I didn't think that those boys were innocent,though at the time I didn't know if the victim was also innocent.

Looking at conflicting reports about it made me wonder who was/wasn't innocent,but after reading one man's blog I'm VERY convinced that the victim was shafted and if you haven't already read it, I promise you that it will leave you and other reader with your tongues hanging out in disbelief.

Many blogs and supposed legitimate news sources have made her out to be bad news, this guy vanceholmes.com makes the most sense. He really put the icing on the cake. He is very convincing. I know that I am.